"We Are Passionate About Jesus!"

 

Dave Schneider

Central Presbyterian Church, Russellville, Arkansas

Sunday, Oct. 5, 2008

 

Philippians 1:19-30

 

Ever since he was a small child, my nephew Jonathan has had a fascination with flying and airplanes.

He would beg his father to take him to any air show that was in the area, especially if it featured the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds.

He saved up to take flying lessons when he passed his 18th birthday.

Then he decided he had to be a Navy fighter pilot,

When my nephew turned 15, I was living in Alamogordo, NM. I took him on a trip with me by car from Portland, Oregon, down to Mew Mexico. We visited Holloman Air Force Base just outside of Alamogordo.

Today Jonathan David Park holds the rank of Major in the United States Air Force. He has flown missions over Afghanistan and also in the first Gulf War.

And Jon and his wife Jen have a 4 year-old son Micah. What do you suppose he loves to play with? Toy airplanes.

"You have to have a passion," Peter Howard, a British Olympic Bobsled Gold Medalist in the 1950's said to me when I was a high school student. At the time I was not too sure where my life was headed.

He looked right at me and wanted to know, "What is the passion in your life?

And I have never forgotten that moment.

Are you able to answer this question today?

the apostle Paul openly shares the struggles in his life as he writes to some close friends in the church he once pastored in Philippi.

This comes at a juncture in his career when he must face his weaknesses in an existential moment:

his greatest worries,

his irritation over those folks who seem to follow him around from city to city, church to church,

criticizing his ministry, detracting from his effectiveness;

his uncertainty over whether he faces freedom, or a death sentence

But finally Paul is able to believe that "even this will turn out for my salvation,

in nothing shall I be ashamed, so that Christ will be magnified in my body."

NEB ch. 1:20, "the greatness of Christ will shine out clearly in my person, whether through my life or through my death."

John Haspels is a Presbyterian minister I met 25 years ago in my Kansas days. Before going to Ethiopia with his wife Gwen and their daughter Heather, the Haspels served as missionaries in the Sudan, a land torn by civil war and armed rebel uprisings. Along with some other Christians, John was captured and taken hostage. After a few days being held in a hot tin hut John Haspels and his companions determined through prayer they should try to escape when their captors were asleep. In prayer they committed their wives and children to God’s care, for to be caught would surely mean immediate death. Before the day was up, John was caught and led back to the encampment at gunpoint. Fortunately within hours they were all rescued by friendly Sudanese government forces.

John Haspels like Paul has a passion in control of his life: to live or to die for his Lord Jesus Christ.

Having been born in Ethiopia, John and his wife Gwen plan to be missionaries among the Surma natives for the rest of their working lives.

I have spent some personal quality time with my nephew during his training years as a military pilot. I know that Jonathan also has a great love and controlling passion which is stronger than his love of flying or his love of country. You see, he is a born-again Christian.

We look from a distance at these young men and women who defend the freedom of our skies and put their lives on the line every time they take off from the runway...

Do you or I ever give a thought about these as men and women of faith?

At Holloman Air Force Base we had two squadrons of Stealth Bombers. Several of the Stealth pilots participated in the life of our church,

In these days since 9/11 we see signs all over this land proclaiming, "God Bless America," or we see little American flags above the car windows.

I wonder what the passion is behind those signs and flags?

Is there a fierce love of country, a love that is willing to sacrifice a life for one’s countrymen,

I cannot help wondering if some of it is just so much flag-waving,

It has been observed that prior to Sept. 11, a great many Americans had no passion, nothing they would give their lives for.

I wonder, what sign of great love and loyalty might you or I wear other, or in addition to, an American flag?

If Paul had not had such an intense zeal, almost to the point of an obsession, would we even have his letters today? or the legacy of his churches

Paul issues a clear invitation to you that you may "allow the greatness of

Jesus Christ to shine clearly through your life"–to be passionate about Jesus!

When you or I can arrive there, "at that juncture of our spiritual pilgrimage," suggests one commentator, "we will then be able to live with joyful, self-giving abandon, welcoming every bit of life, and without fear of death."

Paul lays out the criteria by which we measure our passion for Jesus Christ or any of our human passions.

First of all, the cross must be at the very center.

It means embracing suffering, self-denial and sacrifice.

The root word in Latin for passion is "passio," and it does indeed mean suffering, enduring hardship.

Secondly, Paul says, live out your citizenship as a daily expression of your zeal,

"that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed."

This man prized his Roman citizenship.

And yet he knew his citizenship in heaven comes first.

The point is: through our passion we demonstrate on earth how we shall live as citizens of our heavenly father’s kingdom.

We may sing, "God Bless America, land that I love," but this must be a secondary passion judged through the eyes of faith.

The membership of the Philippian Church was made up of mostly Gentiles. Philippi was a Greek city where the citizens were intolerant of Jews. The Christians had to set an example living out God’s inclusive love for all peoples, both Jew and Gentile, both freed people and those in slavery.

Regardless, Paul says, live worthily–worthy of the cross,

be full of confidence,

be faithful.

Next, you judge your passion for Jesus by giving up your privacy.

Paul again: live boldly, without shame,

Live in the open– be a real witness.

Acknowledge your calling to be servant to all,

There is nothing private between you and God about your religion!

Fourthly, you measure your intensity by whether it gives you joy.

This is a joy that is deeply pervasive and reflected throughout your being, like the note of spiritual gladness that seeps through this letter to the Philippians.

But no joy comes our way comes without the refinement and testing of suffering.

Paul sees joy pure and simply as a gift of our heavenly father’s love expressed through the person of his son.

C. S. Lewis married his wife Joy Davidson, because she could only remain as a student at Oxford if she married. So CS Lewis, her professor and years older, offered to marry her. Two years later she came down with cancer. He stayed by her bedside until she died. He never remarried. Joy Davidson also was the author of a number of great Christian books. But "Joy in the Morning," a line from the psalms, is not about their short tragic marriage, but about how he found Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

For it is when you and I are passionate about Jesus that we are filled with joy, perhaps like two young lovers so filled with the presence of each another.

Rejoice in the Lord always,"Paul concludes toward the end of this letter. "Have anxiety about nothing, but give thanks in everything. And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:4-7).

Fifth and finally, your passion must be able to take you beyond your present life and beyond your death, to a larger Truth (capital T).

The Apostle insists on looking forward in anticipation,

He has a vision. We must have a vision.

The villagers in a small German town lying among the Alps in Bavaria anticipated a deadly plague sweeping through Europe into their village in Oberammergau. Like many Bavarian communities of the 1630's, they were a deeply religious community. The Lutheran and Catholic people prayed fervently to God to spare their town from this pestilence that left few survivors. Miraculously no one in the village died of the plague. The villagers of Oberammergau took a sacred vow that they would express their thanksgiving to their God by putting on a Passion Play every ten years.

Does your passion give a vision and a purpose that takes you beyond the confines of your own life space?

So these are the five standards by which we finally measure our consuming passion for Jesus Christ:

Is the cross at the center?

How does it require you to live out your citizenship?

Are you willing to give up your privacy for it?

Does it give you an inner lasting joy?

Does it take you beyond yourself, your own life an death?